It has become well-established in the packaging field to weight bulk articles in a combinational computerized weigher before packaging, thus to obtain a high degree of accuracy when packaging bulk materials. When the products weighed for packaging comprise rod-like elements such as licorice, a group of pencils, pretzel sticks, bread sticks, and the like, there is a particular problem of how best to handle such elongate products for packaging with a minimum of breakage. The ideal condition is to package these articles as an aligned group so as to consume a minimum amount of packaging material and to make a most compact package for placing subsequently in the larger shipping container or box. In the field it is generally understood that conventional packaging techniques which result in random placement of elongate articles also may require larger volume of packages than if the same number of articles were placed in alignment and then packaged.
To facilitate rapid weighing and packaging of elongate articles, machines have been developed which align the articles prior to packaging. U.S. Pat. No. 4,965,984 discloses a method and apparatus for handling elongate elements on an inclined flight-equipped conveyor which discharges into a collector for storage and transfer to a packaging machine. The articles free-fall from the conveyor to the collector.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,586,313 concerns the packaging of elongated pieces characterized by horizontal, planer series of pans in which French fries and the like are moved from pan to pan and aligned with the longitudinal axes parallel to one other by the action of a plurality of vibrators. When the individual pieces are aligned, they fall into a weighing bucket which has an electronically controlled retention flap that will provide the aligned French fries into a bagging machine when a full charge is received.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,514,959 discloses a system for aligning and packaging elongated products in two steps. First, the randomly oriented product, such as French fries, are horizontally disposed on a vibrating conveyor. At a distal end of the conveyor, a number of channels are provided which receive the advancing French fries. The channels are configured so that the articles must advance with their elongate dimensions parallel to the channel length and the channels are positioned at a preselected angle with respect to a discharge chute. When the French fry is presented to the end of the channel towards the discharge chute, it is turned further to be parallel with the length of the discharge chute. The French fry then drops through the chute into a weighing device and thence to the packaging machine.
We believe it desirable to minimize the distance and time a product is in free-fall in order to materially reduce the amount of product fracture and crumbling and to gain efficiency in handling elongate products.
We believe it would be advantageous to provide an apparatus and method for receiving weighed charges of elongated articles and for presenting those articles in as gentle a condition as feasible to the packaging machine and the present invention is focused at that result.